Police left red-faced after arresting Japanese woman they thought was a foreigner - MSN-Mainichi Daily News

At around 7:40 p.m. on Saturday, three officers spoke to a 28-year-old woman walking on a street in Kawaguchi, and asked her name and nationality because she looked like a woman from Southeast Asia, according to the officials.

After saying, "I'm Japanese," she refused to talk to the officers, who took her to the police station. After she refused to respond to the questions officers asked her in Japanese, police deemed that she was a foreigner.

<>They held her for 14 hours, merely for "looking Asian" (like the UK attitude to "European", some Japanese use "Asian" to mean "Asian excluding Japanese"). Of course, the idea that Japanese are visibly different from other Asians is pretty ridiculous in the first place (as this case proves), considering this to be a justification for arrest is absurd.><>>